Accused kidnapper denied release due to virus
BRIDGEPORT — A drop in prison cases of COVID-19 means Jeri Kollock won’t be released from behind bars for fear of catching the virus.
Kollock, who is accused of kidnapping, beating and raping a New Britain woman in 2018, filed a motion to be released contending he is in danger of contracting COVID-19 in prison.
Neither Kollock nor his lawyer were in court Wednesday to argue the motion but filed paperwork instead.
But Supervisory Assistant State’s Attorney C. Robert Satti Jr. told Superior Court Judge Joan Alexander that he had recently checked with the state Department of Corrections and learned that there were zero inmates transferred to a special unit because of a new case of the virus.
Satti continued that of the 870 inmates who had initially tested positive for COVID-19, 686 had been cleared to return to their respective prisons.
The information was supported by the corrections department website.
“There was a curve and it has now been flattened,” the prosecutor told the judge.
Judge Alexander denied the motion for release.
Kollock, 37, is charged with firstdegree kidnapping, first-degree kidnapping with a firearm, aggravated first-degree sexual assault and threatening. He is being held in lieu of $750,000 bond.
Police said the victim and her daughter had been driving to a friend’s home in Bridgeport on Aug. 11, 2018, when Kollock allegedly forced his way into their car at gunpoint. Kollock agreed to release the daughter at the woman’s pleading and then ordered the woman to drive and park on Bruce Avenue, the police report stated.
Once there, police said Kollock grabbed the victim by the hair and began beating her in the face as she sobbed for him to stop. At one point Kollock put the gun to the woman’s head telling the woman, “Take the ass whooping or get shot,” police said. They said the woman remained silent as Kollock hit her a few more times.
Police said Kollock then sexually assaulted the woman with the gun and ordered her to drive him to a local hotel so that she could show him that “she respected him.”
Once in a hotel room police said Kollock repeatedly raped and sodomized the woman.
Police said Kollock later ordered the woman to drive him to a bar on Stratford Avenue. They said the woman took off as soon as Kollock was out of the car. She then drove to the hospital.
Police said they could not immediately question the victim because she wasn’t able to talk, her face so swollen from the beating.